


Hendiatris {ludus/pragma/philia}

by eleutheria_has_won



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, I don't understand why I ship this so much but I do, MY BABIES, Multi, The Author Regrets Nothing, Threesome, cuteness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-26
Updated: 2014-05-26
Packaged: 2018-01-26 15:44:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1693730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eleutheria_has_won/pseuds/eleutheria_has_won
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>True love is not set in stone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hendiatris {ludus/pragma/philia}

**Author's Note:**

> Music here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrkeWsQZNyU

“Mulan!” Aurora screamed. Phillip lashed out at the snarling beast, and glanced back in time to see Mulan tumble to the ground with a cry of pain.

Aurora darted to her side. “Mulan, Mulan-” she gasped. “Where does it hurt, tell me, where-”

“Side,” Mulan gritted out between her teeth, “My- my side-”

Aurora brushed her shaking fingertips over the other woman’s ribs, and when she touched Mulan’s left side, they came away wet and red. “Oh, no,” she breathed, “Oh, no. Phillip!”

“Busy!” Phillip yelped, ducking a swipe from the creature’s massive paw. (Mulan had called it a Nemean Lion, whose hide could not be pierced by sword or arrow. Personally, Phillip was more concerned with the fact that it was a cat-creature the size of a horse with claws like butcher’s knives.)

“We need to go, Mulan’s hurt!” Aurora shouted back, already tearing strips off her dress.

“Well, if you know some way to kill this thing, I’d love to know!” Phillip yelled, dodging behind a tree.

“Drive it off the cliff!” Mulan shouted hoarsely, before wincing back with a gasp that trailed off into a suppressed whimper of pain.

“Shh, no, don’t talk, don’t talk,” Aurora babbled quietly,“You’ll only make it worse, save your strength, shhh, you’ll be fine, just don’t talk.” Mulan giggled in a distinctly un-warrior-like way, letting her head fall to Aurora’s thigh.

“Of course, but how do I do that?” Phillip said, glancing askance at the two of them. Then he yelped and threw himself to the side just in time, and a massive set of jaws snapped on air where he’d just stood. “Well, shit,” he cursed resignedly under his breath.

A few hours later, Phillip crouched under their shelter, Mulan in his arms, while Aurora flitted around camp starting a fire, setting water to boil, and rifling through their packs for anything resembling medicine.

“Phillip, you need to get the armor out of the way so we can see the damage,” Aurora snapped briskly, sweeping her sleeves aside.

Mulan chuckled under her breath when Phillip started fumbling one-handed for the ties of the breastplate. “Alright?” he said quietly, peeling off the armor and brushing the freed hand over her cheek. She turned her face into, smiling just slightly.

“Not really,” she wheezed. “But I’ve had worse. I’ll be fine.”

“You had better be,” Aurora snapped as she rushed over, swooping down by their side. She held a bowl to Mulan’s lips. “Now drink. It’ll take the pain,” she said to Mulan’s raised eyebrow. “I’m probably going to need to sew you up, this will help.”

While Phillip helped her with that - already the blood loss had drained the warrior of a lot of her strength - Aurora tugged at the undershirt which Mulan wore beneath the armor. The color disguised how soaked it already was with blood; Aurora pulled it away to reveal a perfect set of four deep claw marks wrapping around Mulan’s left side, just below her ribs. She couldn’t stop the sigh of horror which escaped her, or the way she tightened her lips to keep herself from crying out.

“Bad?” Mulan croaked. Aurora glanced up at her face and smiled grimly.

“Nothing that can’t be fixed,” she said firmly.

Sewing the gashes closed was like nothing Aurora or Phillip ever wanted to go through again. Phillip held Mulan’s hand, letting her squeeze as tightly as she needed, and held her down when even her formidable will couldn’t hold her still against the pain. Aurora hummed soothingly as she wove the needle in and out, and tried to ignore how different it was than sewing cloth, while still trying to remember all the differences for the next time she would need to do this. (And by now, with their life now? She knew that there _would_ be a next time.) Mulan fixated her mind onto the sight of her companions and tried her best not to move or to let more than the occasional sob escape. She’d been hurt before, worse than this, but she’d been in the army then, treated in the clean, professional imperial field hospitals. Not a camp in the woods, lit by firelight. It was different, both better and worse.

It was a hellish few hours, and it all blurred together in the mind: the gleam of firelight, the slipperiness of blood, the cries of pain, the soothing murmurs. But eventually, as all bad things do, it ended. While Mulan dozed, Phillip ventured out into the woods to find the beast’s carcass and Aurora cleaned the blood from clothes and hands as best she could; when he returned, the three of them spent another hour coaxing what food they could into one another. Mulan, dizzy from blood loss and medicine, found amusement in eating the meat of the creature which had nearly killed her.

“Taking its strength,” she rasped. Aurora and Phillip exchanged a worried look, but said nothing.

By the time they were finished with their tasks, the waning moon was high overhead, and all of them were exhausted. Aurora tucked herself around Mulan’s right side, and once he finished stoking the fire to last, Phillip settled heavily on her left.

“You’re going to be alright, Mulan,” Aurora whispered, sweeping Mulan’s hair from her forehead with fingertips and letting them trail down to cup the other woman’s face. “You’ve always protected me, and I’m going to protect you, too.” Mulan grinned wearily.

“I know,” she said simply. Aurora’s mouth twitched up at the corner, the tears she’d suppressed all evening beginning to gather in her eyes.

Phillip leaned over them to press his forehead against Aurora’s. “We’re all going to be fine,” he murmured, placing his hand over Aurora’s and stroking his thumb against Mulan’s cheekbone. “We’re together. That’s what matters.”

“And nothing will part us again,” Aurora said, a small, sweet smile on her face, and she tilted forward over Mulan to kiss Phillip chastely. When she pulled back, her eyes fluttered open after a moment, and she smiled for real.

Phillip grinned back. A soft, faintly cool pressure on the back of his hand and movement under his thumb brought his attention back down to Mulan, who was smiling one-sided under his and Aurora’s hands and who had brought her hand up to cover theirs.

“Nothing,” he said, and leaned down to press a light kiss over each of Mulan's eyes, which fell closed obediently, before pressing a third, lingering kiss to her mouth. Even with his eyes closed, he felt her smile grow when he did. After a moment he pulled back, and they shared a look.

“Nothing,” Mulan agreed softly.

“Nothing,” Aurora whispered. Mulan tilted her head back towards the other woman, a question in her eyes. Aurora beamed brighter than the sun, and leaned in accordingly for a third kiss.

“What did I ever do without you?” Mulan murmured with a smile when the two of them separated. Phillip chuckled, pulling the blankets up around them, and wrapped the two girls in his arms to tug them all closer.

“Let’s pray you never have to figure it out,” Aurora giggled softly and tucked her head into the crook of Mulan’s neck. Mulan laughed hoarsely, turning her face into Aurora’s hair and pressing a kiss to the top of her lover’s head, before turning back and pressing another to Phillip’s jaw.

“我愛你們,” Mulan whispered. Phillip smiled, eyes already closed.

“Go to sleep,” Aurora grumbled gently. And that was that.

**Author's Note:**

> I literally just saw the first episode with these guys last night, why do I already ship this so freaking hard.


End file.
